[RickH]

Here's a little dilemma I've encountered, let me just see what you guys think about it.

I have two great friends whom I met here on GBFans a few years ago, and also a 3rd who we met at a convention. We hang out on weekends, go to the pub, etc, as mates do. We "cosplay" as Ghostbusters (the traditional movie characters, Venkman, Stantz, etc) at conventions but we're not strictly a Franchise. As we go out more in Ghostbusters gear, more people get interested in Ghostbusters and want to join our "franchise" but we really just want to maintain our dynamic of 4 friends and no more.

Obviously it's free country, anyone can 'Bust if they want to, but how do you politely tell people that what we have is a core group of friends who just play Ghostbusters at conventions and don't want to take new members?

There is the larger franchise community of OzGB that incorporates every region, so is the solution to just create an official Franchise for our little group, thereby still being part of the larger community but at the same time maintaining our core group of mates without looking like "the arseholes that don't take new members that live in the same area"? I see some of you other Franchises have successfully maintained your little groups of 3 or 4, has this ever lead to conflict because you didn't want to hang out with randoms just because they live in the same city?

[ProtonCharger]

i think having a core group of friends is fine, though if you dont want to play the recruiting game... it's not appropriate to claim a location. it keeps people that want to form a group and let new people join in the area something to work with. than

"yeah, we're the ghostbusters of blank too. those other guys are jerks because they wouldnt let anyone join and they just wear costumes to booze signings."

granted there will be some confusion, but if you just cosplay, it shouldnt matter to you if there's a group wanting to call themselves the sydney ghostbusters.

know what i mean?

plus it doesnt hurt sending them off to an appropriate group already fairly established. or if you are inclined, help them get one going in their area (not that "get group of people in gb uniforms. done" is hard).

[RickH]

i think having a core group of friends is fine, though if you dont want to play the recruiting game... it's not appropriate to claim a location. it keeps people that want to form a group and let new people join in the area something to work with.

Yeah that's what I was thinking too, using a non-geographical name to identify the group. Thanks mate.

[RickH]

Well we've come up with a name, I'm pretty sure no one's used this name before, so we've called ourselves:

Weaver Hall Dropouts

Obviously a reference to Weaver Hall in the original movie, which ties in to the fact that we cosplay as movie characters rather than just ourselves dressed as Ghostbusters. Now we've got an identity and I'm pretty happy with the outcome

[mburkit]

Nice man. I'm glad you were able to come up with a solution that makes you and your group happy.